In our podcast premiering on 27th March, "Men of Culture: Entity Gaming's founders Varun Bhavnani and Neerav Rukhana," AFK Gaming had an engaging discussion with the co-owners of Entity Gaming, Varun Bhavnani and Neerav Rukhana. The two co-owners shared how they met Hindi PUBG Mobile caster Ketan “K18” Patel and how he sparked their enthusiasm for mobile gaming. They spoke about a “moment of euphoria” at the PUBG Mobile Star Challenge 2018 caused by K18, which ultimately sparked the idea of the Entity Gaming organization entering mobile gaming in India.
How Entity Gaming entered into mobile gaming
Neerav stated that both the co-founders of Entity Gaming coincidently happened to be in Dubai at the time of PUBG Mobile Star Challenge 2018, and got the opportunity to attend the event. Neerav noted that a large number of Indians were present at the arena, and some of them turned out to be influencers. One of the popular influencers they met at this arena was K18.
Varun stated that K18 had won a ticket to the tournament as he was one of the representatives or hosts from India. He added that K18 went on stage during the event and gave a shout-out to the Indian representatives, ending with the Indian patriotic slogan “Vande Mataram.” Listening to this slogan, the crowd “roared,” and the co-founders, who were in the audience, were moved by the emotional response of the crowd, which gave them goosebumps. “It brought so much thunder in us that we wanted to do something to get this entire feeling back home. That was the moment it changed like it was the moment of euphoria. That was essentially what happened with us,” he added.
Varun explained that he and Neerav did not know Ketan Patel prior to this event, but they went ahead and spoke to him right after the event, praising him for his excellent performance on stage, which got the crowd cheering for his team. “That is where everything just fell into place. That was the moment of euphoria, where we realized we had to bring all of these feelings back home. In fact, if I had to go the route of what made us even dive into a mobile game event at that time, I would say I would a hundred percent blame it on that,” he added.
Despite featuring a widely successful roster in PUBG Mobile, Entity Gaming did not re-enter mobile esports after the game’s ban. Are you curious about the reasons behind Entity Gaming’s decision to stay out of mobile esports? Listen to our podcast for a complete discussion on this topic and to know much more about Entity Gaming and its journey!